The Alton Observer was an abolitionist newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 established in Alton, Illinois

Alton, Illinois

Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...

 by the journalist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy after he was forced to flee St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

. Lovejoy left St. Louis, where he edited the St. Louis Observer

St. Louis Observer

The St. Louis Observer was an abolitionist newspaper established by Elijah Lovejoy, a New England Congregationalist minister, in St. Louis, Missouri. After the newspaper's printing press was destroyed for a third time by a pro-slavery mob, the newspaper was re-located to Alton, Illinois and...

, after his printing press was destroyed for the third time.

Although Illinois was a free state and Alton was linked to the Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

, the city also had a large pro-slavery faction, including slave catchers and others dependent on slaves. The former earned money by their capture of slaves' escaping across the Mississippi from Missouri. Southern Illinois had numerous slavery supporters, where farmers used slave labor for cultivation.

On November 7, 1837 abolition opponents mobbed the warehouse where Lovejoy had his press, and gunfire was exchanged between them and his supporters. Lovejoy and his supporters killed some in the mob and wounded others. While they were trying to prevent the burning of the warehouse, Lovejoy and Royal Weller were shot; Lovejoy died immediately. The mob threw the press out the window and into the river. Publication of the Alton Observer ended after Lovejoy's murder, but his brother Owen Lovejoy

Owen Lovejoy

Owen Lovejoy was an American lawyer, Congregational minister, abolitionist, and Republican congressman from Illinois. He was also a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad...

became a leader of the abolitionists in Illinois and carried on the struggle. Elijah Lovejoy was considered a martyr by abolitionists across the country.